Couric shares own eating disorder struggle

Viewers of Katie Couric's talk show heard her own disclosure Monday -- made for the first time publicly -- when, during the discussion of eating disorders, she disclosed that she had had her own struggles with that cruel, sometimes deadly condition, The Associated Press reports.

"I wrestled with bulimia all through college and for two years after that," she said, describing the guilt she felt at eating a single cookie or chewing a stick of gum that wasn't sugar-free.

But the bulk of the show was devoted to her guests, who included experts on the subject as well as its sufferers, notably singer and new "X Factor" judge Demi Lovato.

During the hour, Couric said little more about her experience, which she had never before made public.

"I kind of hesitated to even bring it up," she told The Associated Press.

In an exclusive interview with the AP, Couric, 55, shared details about the illness that first plagued her as a senior at Yorktown High School in Arlington, Va.

It began, she said, when she learned she had been turned down by the college she most wanted to attend.

Couric was a likely candidate for an eating disorder.

"Like a lot of young women, I was struggling with my body image," she said, "and feeling like I wasn't good enough or attractive enough or thin enough." She termed her figure at the time as "curvy," and not the cultural ideal, which she identified as "five-foot-eight and weighing 115 pounds. It can be so difficult to embrace the body that you have if it doesn't fit with the ideal."

Couric attended the University of Virginia, then landed her first job at the ABC News bureau in Washington, D.C. And even then, she was waging a battle with food. With the help of a therapist, she had a grip on her condition by her early 20s, though "it didn't mean that I didn't still have issues and feel bad about myself."